Global Café: Women, Life, Freedom

Date: Friday, Sept. 15
Time: 3–6 pm
Location: Goodspeed Theatre, Edwards School of Business Room 18, 25 Campus Dr., Saskatoon

Free and open to the public

About this event

PAIVAND—an Iranian-Canadian society for cultural dialogue—is organizing the Second Women Life Freedom Conference in partnership with the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the Department of Political Studies’ Global Café series at the University of Saskatchewan. It will include guest speakers, interviews and stories focusing on the history of feminist movements in Iran. The event will commemorate the anniversary of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, who died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s religious morality police. This event aims to review critical historical events that led women of Iran to the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement and explore how it impacts similar movements in the region.

Sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan Department of Political Studies and the Saskatoon branch of the Canadian International Council.

Speakers

Shahrzad Mojab is a scholar, teacher, and activist. She is internationally known for her work on the impact of war, displacement, and violence on women's work, learning and education. She is a professor of Adult Education and Community Development and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the former Director of Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity at the Women and Gender Institute, University of Toronto.

Shahrzad is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2020 Canadian Association of Studies in Adult Education Lifetime Achievement Award, the Royal Society of Canada Award in Gender Studies in 2010, and the 2008 Distinguished Contribution to Graduate Teaching Award, OISE/University of Toronto.

Shahrzad’s research and teaching focus on theorizing Marxism and feminism, intersectionality, capitalist-imperialist patriarchy, and the revolts of women, students and nationalities in the Middle East and North Africa. She has published extensively on these topics, and they have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, French, Swedish, and German.

Niloofar Hooman is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts at McMaster University. She is also completing a joint Graduate Diploma (PhD) in gender and social justice. Niloofar holds a PhD in communication (2019), an MA in cultural studies and the media (2010), and a BA in social communications (2007) from the University of Tehran. Her research interests include social media, digital activism, feminism, sexuality, and marginalized bodies, focusing on Iran in the frameworks of critical and feminist theories.

Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri is a tenure-track instructor in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Calgary. She has been teaching at the University of Calgary for a number of years in gender and sexuality studies, Arabic literature, and Muslim xultures. Her research focuses on feminist theory and everyday resistance.

Mehrangiz Kar is a human rights lawyer from Iran and an internationally recognized writer, speaker and activist who advocates for the defence of women’s and human rights in Iran and throughout the Islamic world. A common theme in her work is the tension between Iranian law and the core principles of human rights and human dignity. She is also the author of the book Crossing the Red Line, and an activist of women's rights in Iran. Born in 1944 at Ahvaz, in southern Iran, she attended the College of Law and Political Science at Teheran University. After graduating, she worked for Sazman-e Ta’min-e Ejtemaii (Institute of Social Security) and published over 100 articles on social and political issues.

She was one of the first women attorneys to oppose the Islamization of gender relations following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Kar has been an active public defender in Iran’s civil and criminal courts and has lectured extensively, both in Iran and abroad, on political, legal and constitutional reform, the promotion of civil society and democracy, and dismantling legal barriers to women’s and children’s rights.

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